1632, attributed to J. Day,A Pvblication of Gviana’s Plantation:[…], London: Printed by William Iones for Thomas Paine,[…],→OCLC,page15:
[...] their vessels for use are made some of clay, of which sort some are so great as that they will containe more then onehogshead of water.
1713,[Roger North], “Of Fishing for Carriage”, inA Discourse of Fish and Fish-ponds,[…], London: Printed forE[dmund] Curll,[…],→OCLC,page62:
The best Veſſel for Conveyance, (if you carry above 20 Miles) is, a great Tun that holds fiveHogſheads; but if no more than 10, 15, or 20 Miles, ordinaryHogſheads will do well enough. I know by Experience you may ſafely carry 300Carps, ſix and ſeven Inches long, in oneHogſhead; but from ſeven to a Foot, not ſo many by a fourth Part.
Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, ahogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31½ gallons, a rundlet 18½ gallons.
1987, Keith Dunstan,The Amber Nectar, Ringwood: Vicking O'Neil, page81:
Barrels came in firkins, nine gallons; kilderkins, eighteen gallons; halves, twenty-seven gallons; barrels, thirty-six gallons andhogsheads, fifty-four.
[T]he Wind blowing from the Shore, nothing came to Land that Day, but Pieces of Timber, and aHogſhead which had ſomeBrazil Pork in it, but the Salt-water and the Sand had ſpoil'd it.
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Gives Some Account of Himself and Family, His First Inducements to Travel.[…]”, inTravels into Several Remote Nations of the World.[…][Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London:[…]Benj[amin] Motte,[…],→OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput),page13:
I then made another ſign that I wanted Drink. They found by my eating, that a ſmall Quantity would not ſuffice me, and being a moſt ingenious People, they flung up with great dexterity one of their largeſtHogſheads, then rolled it towards my Hand, and beat out the top; I drank it off at a Draught, which I might well do, for it did not hold half a pint, and taſted like a ſmall Wine ofBurgundy, but much more delicious.
As soon as the syrup passes into the coolers, and is met by the air, it grains, and the molasses at once escapes through the sieves into a cistern below. It is then white or loaf sugar of the finest kind—clear, clean, and as white as snow. When cool, it is taken out, packed intohogsheads, and is ready for market.
Here is ahogshead of molasses or of brandy directed to John Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some trader among the Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his clearing, [...]
We knocked the head out of an emptyhogshead and hoisted thishogshead to the flat roof of the chapel, where we clamped it down fast, poured in gunpowder till it lay loosely an inch deep on the bottom, then we stood up rockets in thehogshead as thick as they could loosely stand, all the different breeds of rockets there are; [...]
[T]urning his head he saw, in his own words, something round and enormous, resembling a sixteen-hundred-weight sugar-hogshead wrapped in striped flannelette, up-ended in the middle of the large floor space in the office.
“[...] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like / Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and greathogsheads of beer. [...]”
With his silly toupee, like the coat of a shaggy poodle, and his tight Continental tailoring, ill suited to hishogshead physique, Mel was a vision of disingenuousness.
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, November 2010;“hogshead,n.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.